“Which is why nothing better happen to get it shot down.”
“You worried about Brody because of the vamp attack two days ago?”
“This is Blood Moon, paranormal central. Our mascot is the Howlers. No one in town freaks out when Bella’s sells mushroom ravioli and if you think I believe he’s going to tell Ethan to stop making pumpkin spice lattes and those ghost mochas—”
“Yeah right. Any time rules get handed down, count on Emo to be the exception.”
And wow, that had come out way sharper than I’d intended. For a beat, there was only the sound of the rain thundering down onto the awning. I started to say something, but then I caught sight of Lacey frowning.
“I think we should talk about the night of Brody’s promotion.”
I gripped the edge of the counter, vision graying out. Blood roared in my ears, the lights from Dark spilling out onto the street, the smell of espresso enough to turn my stomach even a year later—
“You gonna tell me why you slept with my brother? Cause I’m not sure there are words that can make that better, sweetheart.”
She glared back at me, eyes hard as steel. Out on the street, sheets of rain began to blow in from the northwest.
“I’m not apologizing for a damn thing. You and I weren’t together, and you’d made it perfectly clear that option wasn’t on the table.”
“So why—"
“Because you need to get it through your thick skull that it was never about Ethan. That night, when we all showed up at the bar, I was with someone else. You were with someone else. And something about seeing you there with your brothers, surrounded by them, celebrating with them, another girl on your arm… I realized that it was going to be more nights like this. Graduations. Cookouts. Weddings. Housewarmings. And eventually, maybe not that year or even the next, one of those girls would become permanent, and it would never be me.”
She stalked over to the window. Lightning illuminated the sky.
“Watching you with her hurt in ways I can’t even begin to describe. You and I couldn’t be together. And having that rubbed in my face everywhere I turned… I just wanted to stop hurting. I wanted to stop feeling. It was never about him.”
And at those words, my wolf arched within my bones.
Mate.
I looked down, breathing hard.
“I didn’t go home with her.”
Lacey tore the wrapper off a cupcake. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”
I thought back to the night she’d TP’d my house, to the blood-red Blair’s frosting streaked down my front door. She believed there were no more lies left between us. When the truth was, I’d only gotten better at telling them.
“And I’m telling you the night you were infected was the last time I went home with anyone. Until two days ago.”
She froze mid-bite, a dollop of creamy coconut frosting smeared across her upper lip.
“You, um,” she mumbled through a mouthful of cupcake. “I mean, you haven’t—”
“No.”
“You’ve dated, though.”
“Your point?”
“I just assumed—”
“I infected you when transmission should have been impossible. I couldn’t risk that happening to someone else. Or letting my wolf break free from its cage. Not after the way I hurt you.” Not when we both knew I was too unstable. That I couldn’t be trusted.
Her brow furrowed. Like she couldn’t decide whether my insta-confession was more disturbing or just plain pathetic. “Dallas—"
My phone went off, blaring Kenny Chesney. Brody. Cursing, I dug it out of my pocket.
“Can I call you back—”
“Something’s come up. Where are you?”
Instantly, Lacey pushed away from the counter. I switched things over to speaker.
“We’re at Blair’s. What’s going on?”
A dispatch radio crackled in the background. “August texted. Two of our cameras just went offline on the highway coming west into town.”
Lacey met my eyes. “Any chance it’s just the storm? It’s blowing like crazy out there.”
“Could be coincidence. But given the fact that two undeads breached our perimeter the other day, I’m not taking any chances. Can you two check it out?”
Lacey squeezed past me, going to shut off the ovens. I caught her shoulder, spinning her around. Dragging up the sleeve of her hoodie, I examined her arm. The slash marks had closed, the dark pink scars scabbed over, but her flesh from wrist to elbow was mottled with old bruising. She was healing now, but sluggishly. From the way she kept gripping the counter for support, I was pretty sure the fatigue and disorientation hadn’t improved either. Whatever the fang-heads had done to her, her system was still fighting it.
I put my brother on mute. “Sure you’re up for this?”
“We need answers.” She bared her teeth. “Let’s go hunting.”
* * *
An hour later, we were out on the side of Highway 29, soaked to our skins. Wild squalls lashed rain across the empty highway perpendicular to the road. It was so dark I couldn’t make out anything but the light of Lacey’s phone, high up in the branches of a massive live oak.
“Pretty sure you don’t have to take that whole tree apart, sweetheart.”
“Do you want to climb up here?”
“Think we both know how that would go.” I checked my phone. Still a spotty signal.
“Because if I recall, only one of us has ever made it through the Aragog scene in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets without suddenly remembering we need more popcorn, or it’s time for an emergency Twizzler run, or he needs to check the sprinkler heads—”
“Water waste is a serious issue.”
“It was December.”
Something drifted down from the branches overhead, landing on the back of my neck. I ripped off my jacket, cursing loud enough to draw every undead for twenty miles down on top of us. Laughing, Lacey jumped down.
“Wench,” I mumbled. “Anything?”
“Fried. Same as the last one.”
Inside the Escalade, I fired up the heater while she pulled out her phone.
“Hey.” August’s voice cut out. “What’d you find?”
He sounded worn down. Part of me wanted to ask if it had been a bad night, but the only thing my brother hated worse than anyone fussing over him was two people doing it. There was no name for the chronic condition he suffered from, and just as few answers. His specialists had determined it was some sort of autoimmune disorder brought on by his body’s response to the lycan virus. When August’s disease flared, the attacks caused nerve damage, seizures, crippling pain and disorientation. Since he was a shifter, he healed in between episodes, only for his immune system to flare again the moment he was better and send him crashing back down. Hell of a catch-22. To make matters worse, for the past year, the interval between flare-ups had been shrinking, and no one could figure out why.
“Could be hail damage,” Lacey said. “Best guess, that big storm the last night of the Harvest Moon Festival cracked the camera’s exterior casing, then with the freezes we’ve been having the past week, moisture got in there and shorted something out.”